


hush can't have this leaking out you know it's secret talk

by caireneprincess



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2020-10-12 01:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20556311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caireneprincess/pseuds/caireneprincess
Summary: Jiwoo writes poems for girls whose admirers can’t do it themselves. One of those girls is Ha Sooyoung, also known as Yves.





	1. Preface - Jiwoo

Jiwoo sat down and looked through the pile of letters. Most of them were to completely different schools. That has the perk of a lower chance of anyone finding out about her little business, but it also means that she struggles more with writing. The guys are always bad at describing their girlfriends in a way that gives her any material to work with. Thankfully a lot of them have public social media so she can just go on there and find pictures of the girls. 

Some of the girls are very easy to write about based on a single picture. Some give no hints to their interests whatsoever.

One of these girls was Yves. Or at least that’s the name Jiwoo gave her for her poems. Her real name is Sooyoung. A secret admirer of hers started asking her for poems a year ago and Jiwoo has been infatuated with her since. She gets a commission for her multiple times a month, and every time she finds out a little tidbit about her that makes her fall in love even more.

The first time she only had a picture of her and her name. She looked so beautiful in the picture. You could tell from the way she stood that she was a dancer. When she googled her, she found out that she also did some minor modeling work. It didn’t give her that much to work with yet. She looked into some of the brands she had modeled for and found out that one of them was known for making knock off Yves Saint Laurent. So, she named her Yves.

It was the only thing she could come up with that wasn’t completely generic. Writing poems for people you don’t know is incredibly hard. Jiwoo often feels like she deserves far more than 5$ for every poem, but any more and it wouldn’t be a sustainable business anymore.

The first few poems she tried writing for her were centered around the idea of her being a dancer. She would describe elaborate scenes based on the pictures she found of her. But it didn’t work. She couldn’t properly visualize it. She tried to find more info on her, but it seemed like the dance angle wasn’t going to work for the poems. She looked through more of her modeling pictures and found a few of her wearing what looked like farmer clothes.

That was something she’d never tried, writing poetry about farming. But it worked surprisingly well. She had the perfect poem finished in just a few minutes. It was perfect. It was the ideal mix of funny but still slightly romantic. She was very interested in knowing how Yves reacted to that mess of a poem. The guy who requested the poem had asked for more, so it seems like she liked it.

She shifted through the pile of letters, hoping to find another request for a poem for Yves. But sadly, there wasn’t any. She hadn’t gotten one in a while. Maybe it had actually worked, and that secret admirer started dating her and now doesn’t need any more poems.  
The idea upset Jiwoo a lot. Half of her motivation behind maintaining this business was writing love letters to Yves. If she couldn’t do that anymore, then what was the point? Aside from being able to pay her bills. Jiwoo had to remember that there were more things than Yves in the world, even if that’s how she’d been living her life for her past year.

She looked at some of her other regular requests. She rarely had people repeatedly ask for poems. Either they got what they wanted and didn’t ask for any again, or it didn’t work and they figured that another poem from her wouldn’t do anything. But some people, probably out of desperation and no clue what else to do, came back a lot. There were a few guys that asked for multiple poems, and there was a few girls that multiple people wanted poems for. 

Hilariously enough, all the girls that fell into that group went to the same school, the one Yves happened to go to.

Jiwoo often wondered if those girls knew each other, and if they shared these poems between them. She figured that they didn’t, because otherwise she would’ve been caught a while ago. She still imagines that it would be at the very least amusing if they did.

She started writing Jinsouls poem, still thinking about a scenario where she and Yves would sit down and compare their love letters, seeing if they had anything in common.


	2. Chapter 1 - Sooyoung

“Are you still reading those stupid old letters that guy gave you ?” 

“Shut up Jinsoul, they were sweet.”

Sooyoung wanted to punch Jinsoul for her comment. Not a day went by where she didn’t regret telling her about the letters she got. Or used to get at least. She hadn’t gotten one in a while, and it saddened her a bit. 

“I’m sure they were but why are you reading them. You hate the guy so much, you threatened to file a restraining order against him.” 

That was true. The guy that gave them to her was an absolute creep. He used to follow her around and randomly place the letters in her locker, or sometimes when she wasn’t looking, in her bag. The following around wasn’t just confined to school, he followed her everywhere. She spotted him at her dance recitals, which were, to be fair enough, public events. But she saw him at cafes, at the mall, just about anywhere she went. When she saw him waiting at the bus station next to her house she decided to confront him about it. He hadn’t contacted her since.

“Well, yeah, but that’s beside the point.” 

She still enjoyed the letters themselves. The poems were well written, funny and sweet. They were always about the most random topics. The first one was about Sooyoung as a farmer. She had no clue how he got the inspiration for that, as there was nothing about her that implied farmer, or even just vaguely country. But the poem was surprisingly good. All of them were. It had always confused her. In person, the guy couldn’t string together three words without stuttering, and she was pretty sure that he was failing all of his language classes. But he didn’t show any of that in his letters . If he wasn’t such a creep in person, just one of them would have completely won her over. 

“Well, you might be interested to know that I got a few letters myself, recently,” Jinsoul said.

Sooyoung finally looked away from her letters and stared at her. “You got one?”

Jinsoul slapped her. Not very lightly. “You’re not the only one that gets to have semi secret admirers. I know it’s hard to imagine, but I’m very lovable.” 

“I know you are; you remind me every single day. I just don’t get why you start getting letters the instant I stop getting them.”

“You did harass the guy into stopping.” Jinsoul said.

“No I didn't. I told him to stop stalking me, not to stop sending me nice letters.” 

“I don’t think you got that across very well.”

“I know I didn’t get it across very well.”

Jinsoul sighed. “Can we please just talk about me now?”

Sooyoung wanted to fight her a bit longer, but she was curious about the content of her letter. Or was it letters ? She really had to pay better attention to Jinsoul.

“Sure, what’s the letter about?”

Jinsoul face lit up. “It’s a poem!”

“Are you kidding me?” Sooyoung wanted to scream. 

“It’s really sweet! I don’t really understand it though, there’s a lot of memaphors.”

Sooyoung took a moment to understand what Jinsoul was trying to say. 

“You mean metaphors?”

“Possibly. Anyways I think I’m a fish in it or something.”

“Fitting. You do have the IQ of a goldfish.”

Now Jinsoul was the one who wanted to slap her. 

“Shut up, I’m the smartest person at this table. Ms. Cho even chose me to represent the school in next month's statewide mathletes meet.”

Perfect opportunity to switch the topic.

“Do you have any information on who you’re going to go up against?”

Jinsoul shook her head. 

“No clue, all I know is that one of the girls’ names is Jungeun, but I don’t know if she’s the one that’s paired with me.”

“Oh well, good luck with that, then, I guess. You think she’s gonna be cute?”

“It’s a mathletes meet. I wouldn’t set my standards very high. There’s more important things going on in my life right now anyways.”

Sooyoung raised her eyebrows at that. “Like what, your career as a soundcloud rapper?”

“No, you idiot,” Jinsoul replied. “Like your performance next week. You still haven’t given me the invitation to it.”

“Oh yeah. Right. I completely forgot about that.”

“And for your information, I would never release my music on soundcloud. I would never stoop that low.”

Sooyoung smiled at that. Jinsoul took her rap “career” so seriously sometimes, it was adorable. She grabbed her bag and went through it. After a few moments she managed to find the invitation.

“It’s one person only, so no bringing your girlfriend of the week,” she joked.

Now Jinsoul really slapped her. Hard. “Ouch!”

“You deserved it.”

Sooyoung had to admit that she did have it coming. But since when was Jinsoul that strong? She had to get her workout routine later.

She told her a bit about the performance, and how the practices had been going. It was going surprisingly well, considering that they had just gotten a new dance captain. Viian was very sweet, but she was very bad at asserting herself. Most of the crew didn’t really take her seriously. But it was still coming together very well.


	3. Chapter 2 - Jiwoo

Jiwoo was woken up by the sound of twelve nerds yelling. One of those nerds was Jungeun. Jiwoo knew that agreeing to go along to the mathletes meet would mean having to deal with all the math nerds that she usually avoided. What she didn’t know was that Jungeun would become her most obnoxious and nerdy self around them. She was already regretting her decision and the trip hadn’t even started yet. Once they actually got to the place where the meeting was held, she would have an even harder time avoiding them, considering that she would have to share a room with at least four of them. 

Why was she even here? Jiwoo wasn’t good at maths. What did Jungeun do to convince Ms. Hwang to let her come along? She certainly wasn’t going help the team.

After a three hour bus ride, they finally arrived. Jiwoo stormed out of the bus and took her stuff out from under it. Ms. Hwang had already given out some room keys and Jiwoo had made sure that she got one. She ran up to the rooms without listening to any of the rules that they were being told, and waited for Jungeun to arrive. 

She came two hours later. “Oh, wow,” she said. “This is so much nicer than our usual accommodations. I think in the last one, one of the beds had mold on it.”

Jiwoo sat silently, glaring at her. 

Jungeun just shrugged. “If you’re not even gonna try to enjoy it, I can’t help you.” 

“There’s nothing here to enjoy.” 

“There’s a lot of fun things to do before the competition! Later today we’re going to practice some polynomial division, doesn’t that sound cool?” Jungeun said, trying to cheer her up, unaware that Jiwoo had been doing horribly in maths for years.

“Jungeun, are you even hearing yourself? I would rather die.” Jiwoo said.

“Fine by me. Dinner is at 8. If you’re not there, I’m gonna assume you died.” Jungeun replied as she left the room. 

“Fine by me! Rot in math hell for all I care!” Jiwoo yelled after her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jiwoo decided to skip the communal dinner and instead went to a cafe closeby. It was full of people that were attending the competition, which wasn’t much better than attending her own groups dinner. But it was better than letting Jungeun win in the non-existent competition Jiwoo had made up in her head.

It looked like Jungeun was gonna win this round, because she was waiting for Jiwoo at the counter. Jiwoo decided to ignore her, and ordered her meal without acknowledging her in any way. She sat down at the closest empty table, and started eating all by herself.

A few minutes later Jungeun sat down next to her, and started talking about the schedule for the next few days of competition. Jiwoo did her best to tune all of it out, but when she heard that Jungeun’s opponent was called Jung Jinsoul, her interest was piqued. 

“Are you sure that’s her name?” she blurted out.

“So she speaks! I knew mentioning a girl would get your attention.”

“Shut up. Are you sure that’s her name?” Jiwoo asked again. 

Jungeun shrugged. “I could’ve gotten it wrong, didn’t pay too much attention. Why, does it seem weird?”

Jiwoo shook her head. “No, I just thought that it sounded familiar.” 

“It’s a common name, probably not the same girl from the poems.”

“Probably not.”

After a while, a pretty blonde approached them, asking if she could sit down next to them. They both said okay, because they were leaving soon anyways. She didn’t seem very talkative, so they didn’t ask her about anything. After they left Jiwoo joked that Jungeun was so silent because she had a crush on her. Jungeun didn’t respond to that. 

When they arrived back at their room, they saw a note from one of the girls that were supposed to be staying with them. Apparently, they had both decided to stay in another room, so Jungeun and Jiwoo were on their own. Jungeun was upset that there was no one around to practice with her. Jiwoo celebrated not having to deal with nerds. 

She wanted to help Jungeun with her weird math stuff, but she fell asleep before they got through one page of problems. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she woke up the next day, Jungeun was already gone. Jiwoo looked at the schedule that she had been given the day earlier, and saw that the competition had already started. Jungeun could’ve at least woken her up. Not that she was going, but at least she would’ve wished her good luck or something. 

Jiwoo filled the time until the competition was over by finishing some poems. She hadn’t written any in a while, and the orders had piled up. She didn’t have enough time to do them all, and for the first time since starting this whole business, she considered taking a break. It was a fun job, certainly better than some of the jobs her friends had. But it was still a job, and it was incredibly time consuming. 

She didn’t even know how to approach taking a break though. She just had a bunch of people at different schools who searched for people that might need poems, and then sent her the requests. She could tell them to temporarily stop looking for new “customers”, but she would have a hard time getting to the ones that already know about her, considering that they all sent their requests anonymously. She couldn’t make a public announcement to get to them without exposing the whole thing, which would kinda ruin the whole point of the business. Seems like she was stuck.

She didn’t have any regular requests to work on, which made it harder to get done quickly. When Jungeun came back, Jiwoo was only halfway done. 

“Hey, how was the competition?” Jiwoo asked, pretending to be interested. 

“It was okay, I tied, but I scored a date which is far more important.”  
Now Jiwoo really was interested. “A date ?”

“Yeah, remember that girl at the cafe yesterday ? Turns out that was Jinsoul, my opponent. I’m going out with her and a friend of hers later this week.”

“Is it really a date if she’s bringing another friend along ?” 

“Actually, it’s a double date.”

“Double with who?” Now Jiwoo was interested in knowing which friend Jungeun was pulling into this.

“With you.”

“What?” Jiwoo was pissed. “Jungeun, you can’t just sign me up for a double date without asking me first.”

“Are you really complaining about going on a date with a cute girl? I was worried that she wouldn’t want to go just us two, so I said that I have a friend to set up with one of hers, and she went along with that.”

“Ugh, I’ll go. I guess. But you owe me,” Jiwoo figured that if she did her a favor, she’d have to return it. “What’s her name anyways?” 

“I think it was Sooyoung?”


	4. Chapter 3.1 - Sooyoung

“What do you mean I’m going on a date next Friday?” Sooyoung yelled. “I have practice all day, I don’t have time. Jinsoul, some of us actually have a life.” 

Sooyoung was also mad about being pulled into a date without being asked first, but it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Jinsoul was constantly signing her up for after-school activities and volunteer jobs and occasionally charity marathons, so a date was actually nice for a change. She was a little excited, too, since with all the extra practices she’d had in the past few months, she hadn’t had time to meet any girls, and she didn’t enjoy being single very much.

But she didn’t want to give Jinsoul the satisfaction of going along with it without a fight, so she argued a bit more until she pretended to give in. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days later, they still didn’t know where to go for the date. Jinsoul and Jungeun seemed to talk about everything but that. The two had really hit it off. They were constantly calling and texting each other. Jinsoul had even sent Jungeun a picture of every dog she saw throughout the day. Sooyoung felt like they didn’t even need to go on the date anymore, since they already acted like they were together. 

She and Jiwoo, on the other hand, hadn’t exchanged a single word. Jinsoul said that she gave Jiwoo Sooyoungs number, but Sooyoung still hadn’t heard from her. Not even a short “hi, I’m Jiwoo”. Jinsoul figured that Jiwoo was probably a bit shy and didn’t want to risk leaving a bad impression, but Sooyoung was worried. How well could the date go if Jiwoo obviously didn’t like her?

She voiced all of these concerns and more to Viian after their dance practice. She tried to concentrate on the problems relating to the date, not her hypothetical worry that Jiwoo hated her. She spent a lot of time on the whole “we don’t even have a location” issue. 

“How about my rollerskating rink?” Viian suggested.

Sooyoung was confused. “Your rollerskating rink?” This was the first time she’d heard of Viian and rollerskating.

The older girl laughed. “Yeah. Don’t ask how it happened but I kinda own a rollerskating rink here in town. Or run it at least, I don’t actually make money off of it. It’s a bit weird. It’s a nice place for dates though, maybe you and your friend could go there?”

Sooyoung contemplated for a few minutes. It seemed like a cute enough setting, and if she and Jiwoo didn’t get along she could just spend the night with Viian instead. All she had to do was convince Jinsoul of the idea, and she in turn had to convince Jungeun and Jiwoo. Shouldn’t be too hard.


	5. Chapter 3.2 - Jiwoo

“I can’t go on this date.”

Jungeun sighed. “Jiwoo, we’ve been over this a hundred times now. They’re not gonna recognize you from some poems. And even if, I doubt they’ll be mad at you for writing them love letters.”

Jiwoo threw a pillow at her. “Shut up. You don’t understand the situation.”

Jiwoo was extremely terrified of anyone ever finding out about her side business. She trusted very few people with the secret. Only Jungeun and two others knew, and she liked it that way. If too many people know, then the entire business model would fail. 

Aside from that, she was also worried about what Sooyoung would think. If they didn’t get along there wouldn’t be a point in their relationship where she would have to reveal her secret, so in that case it wouldn’t be a problem. 

But she wanted to get along with Sooyoung. She wanted to go on more dates with her. She wanted to have a solid relationship with her. She had spent so much of her time writing her love letters that she was genuinely in love with her at this point. She just didn’t want to tell her about it. But if they really got that far into a relationship, then she might be upset about how long Jiwoo took to tell her about it. But if she told her right at the start, that might ruin it too. She didn’t know what to do.

A few hours later, after she had gone to sleep, Jungeun woke her up. 

“Jiwoo. Jiwoo. JIWOO. Wake up. Come on. I have something important to tell you,” the blonde said as she shook her awake. 

Jiwoo didn’t have the energy to yell back, so she just stayed silent. 

“It’s about our date,” Jungeun said, in an effort to get Jiwoo to listen. 

“What is it? Did one of them cancel?”

“Jiwoo, shut up, nobody is cancelling anything. The date is happening whether you want it to or not. No, it’s about where we’re going. Jinsoul said that one of Sooyoungs friends runs this cute rollerskating rink downtown, and she thinks it’s a nice place for our date. What do you think?”

“I think I don’t want to go on this date,” Jiwoo replied.

Jungeun didn’t even acknowledge her. “So it’s settled, I’ll text her yes.”

“Why did you even ask me if you’re just gonna go with your own opinion anyways?,” Jiwoo complained.

“I like making you feel like you actually have control over any of this.”

“It’s not working,” Jiwoo pointed out.

Jungeun shrugged. “I don’t really care. Good night Jiwoo, sleep well.”

“Fuck off. I hope you don’t wake up.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day Jiwoo spent time catching up on neglected school work. She had spent so much time fighting with Jungeun that she hadn’t had a lot of time to do anything else. She was barely passing her classes as it was, so she really needed to catch up now before it was too late. After a few hours, she was so bored that she decided she didn’t really care about school enough to spend her entire day working on stuff, so she stopped. 

She went through her phone for a bit, and came across Sooyoung’s number in her notes. Jinsoul had given it too her, so they could talk a bit before the date, but she hadn’t contacted her yet. The more she waited until she sent her a message, the ruder she looked. 

She decided to finally send her something, just so Sooyoung wouldn’t have a bad opinion of her before they met. She spent some time contemplating what exactly she should send her. She made multiple drafts, before finally settling on something she thought was low risk. She typed in the words, and hit send.


	6. Chapter 4 -Sooyoung

Sooyoung stumbled around, looking for some bandages. The storage room of the dance studio was extremely disorganized. Adding to that, nobody had bothered to change the lightbulb in there after the last one broke, so the only light inside the room came from her phone’s flashlight. After some rummaging around and bumping her head against badly placed shelves, she found a box of first aid. There was some bandages and, even better, some icy hot packs.

She went back to the changing room and started to unwrap some of the packs. By the time she was done applying them, it looked like she had bruises all over her body. It felt like it too. Viian had insisted on them doing extra practices before school for the whole week, in addition to their usual after school practices. They were all so exhausted, they were trying to convince Viian to cut some practices because the excessive work was starting to affect their performance. She refused, saying that there was no such thing as too much practice. Sooyoung’s joints begged to differ.

Sooyoung was falling asleep in the changing room when Yerim came in. The younger girl didn’t want to disturb her sleep, and she was nearly falling asleep herself, but when she brushed Sooyoung’s arm trying to get to the icy hot, she accidentally woke her up.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She apologized. Sooyoung shook her head, trying to convince Yerim that it was fine. She reassured her that she had no hard feelings for a few minutes until Yerim accepted it. She helped her with the icy hot. She could tell that Yerim was also incredibly sore from practice, and she doubted that she would be able to properly apply it by herself.

The two sat around talking about that day’s practices for a bit more, before Jinsoul suddenly came in.

“What are you still doing here? Practice ended hours ago. I’ve been waiting for so long, I was about to call in a missing persons report.” The blonde was extremely mad at Sooyoung. She hated picking her up from dance practice for this exact reason. She was always a little late, but this was a new record.

“I’m sorry! I fell asleep. Today’s practice was exceptionally bad.”

Jinsoul rolled her eyes. “You say that every time. Have you considered that maybe dancing isn’t for you if you can’t handle it?”

Sooyoung threw the empty icy hot box at her. “Fuck off.”

Jinsoul picked the box up from the floor and started playing around with it. “So I assume that means you don’t want me to drive you back home?”

Sooyoung quickly got up and got her bag. “Oh,, shut up. Let’s just go. Yerim, do you want to come along?”

She looked up. “Oh yeah, it’d be nice if you could drop me off at the shelter on your way.”   
She was looking in Jinsoul’s direction.

Jinsoul continued playing with the box. “Sure, just give me the address.”

A few minutes later, the girls were all sitting in Jinsoul’s car while she put the address into the GPS. In the meanwhile, Jinsoul asked Yerim a few questions about her work at the shelter.

“Yeah, it’s mostly fun, except for days like these. Today I’ll have to say goodbye to Lara. She was my favorite dog. I kinda wish I wouldn’t have to go to work today.”

Jinsoul wrinkled her forehead. “Why, what’s going on with Lara? Is she getting adopted or something?”

Yerim shook her head. “The opposite. She’s been with us for too long, we can’t keep her anymore.”

“Where is she going then?” Jinsoul asked.

Yerim didn’t reply. She just started sobbing quietly and both girls instantly understood what she meant.

The shelter was very close, so they arrived in a few minutes. Yerim thanked Jinsoul for the ride and went in. After that, Sooyoung and Jinsoul didn’t talk much, their mood still down from what Yerim had told them. When they arrived at Sooyoung’s house, she quietly left the car without saying anything.

She was glad to finally be home. She’d been looking forward to a bath the whole day. And some food. She’d spent the entire day on Red Bull and some chips she’d found in Jinsoul’s car that morning.

When she was done and ready to go to bed, she finally checked her phone. She’d forgotten it at home that day, so she hadn’t had any opportunity to see if anyone had sent her something important. She scrolled through some group chats, but didn’t find anything special there. Then she looked through her notifications and saw it.

“message from unknown sender: Hi, I’m Jiwoo. Jungeun gave me your number so we could talk a bit before the date. How do you feel about it? Jungeun and Jinsoul seem to have really hit it off huh?”

Sooyoung dropped her phone. She couldn’t believe it, Jiwoo had actually texted her. Maybe the girl didn’t hate her after all. Yeah, she was probably just as nervous as Sooyoung was. Possibly even more, as she was basically forced to take the first step. It must’ve been a lot of pressure. She laid down and thought about what to reply. She decided not to overthink it too much and wrote “Hi, Sooyoung here. Yeah, they’re really getting along well, I’m happy for them. What do you think of the rollerskating rink? A friend of mine suggested it, and I think it’s v cute.”

She turned her phone off and went to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sooyoung was woken up by a call. From the ringtone she could tell that it was Jinsoul. She had given Jinsoul a special ringtone years ago so she could distinguish important phone calls from any of the dumb stuff she always called her about. She checked the time. 4 AM. Four hours until morning dance practice. She needed the sleep desperately. She ignored the call and tried to continue sleeping. It rang again and again. Maybe Jinsoul needed help. She answered the phone reluctantly. 

“Jinsoul, this better be really important.”

“Jungeun and I are trying to break out Lara but Yerim is too busy to help us do it and we need you.”

Sooyoung was confused. None of what Jinsoul said made any sense whatsoever.

“Who the fuck is Lara and why are you breaking her out? And what does Yerim have to do with this ?”

She could hear Jinsoul sigh on the other side. “The dog Yerim talked about yesterday. Me and Jungeun are trying to save her.”

Sooyoung didn’t know if she was impressed by how dedicated the two were to helping the dog, or by how dumb the two were. 

“You do realize you could just adopt the damn dog right?” 

“Where’s the fun in that?” 

Sooyoung wanted to end the phone call for that statement alone. She debated what to do for a few moments. On one hand, the two had made their own dumb decision and she’s not responsible for their stupidity. On the other, Jinsoul has been her best friend for her entire life and she really didn’t want her to go to jail.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you Sooyoung. I owe you one.”

Sooyoung got up and put on the first top she found. It happened to be the same hoodie she wore to last nights dance practice. She’d just thrown it on her desk chair because she couldn’t be bothered to put it away. She decided to take her bag along, just in case she didn’t have time to go back home later. 

She went downstairs and left a note in the kitchen explaining to her parents that she and some friends had met up early for dance practice. She grabbed an apple to eat later and a cup of iced coffee she still had in the fridge.

It took her nine minutes to drive to the shelter. She broke a few red lights and speed limits in the process, but she figured that laws didn’t count in emergencies. She took out her phone to call Jinsoul when the blonde suddenly tapped on her car window. Sooyoung was so startled she nearly dropped her iced coffee. 

Jinsoul opened the car door. “Come on, no time to explain we need to do this quickly.”

Sooyoung put her coffee in the cup holder and got out. “What am I supposed to do?”

Jinsoul grabbed her arm and started walking towards the shelter backdoor. She didn’t really explain anything to Sooyoung, she just told her that there was someone she had to distract and that another friend of Jungeun’s would help her. 

Sooyoung was still too tired to properly understand anything, so she hoped that Jungeuns friend was a bit more put together. 

Jinsoul waited with her for a few minutes until Jungeun’s friend arrived, and then told the two to wait until a truck came, and to distract whoever came out until she got back to them. Sooyoung was too tired to talk, and the other girl wasn’t much better. They just stood there in silence.

Sooyoung looked at the girl for a bit. She was short, not much shorter than herself but still, definitely short. Her hair was dyed to the prettiest shade of brown, and you could tell that she usually had bangs, although they were clipped away at the moment. She was far better dressed than Sooyoung. She was wearing this lacy blue blouse that looked like it had just been ironed this morning, along with what seemed to be a school uniform skirt and jacket. Maybe she had some school activities later that day? Unlikely for a Saturday. She probably just liked the uniform, and it was awfully pretty on her. It seemed like she’d actually gotten a heads up on this and had some time to get ready.

A few minutes, later a truck came. The other girl looked at her. “I’ll talk to him, you wait here and look out for anyone else.” 

Sooyoung nodded. The less she had to do, the better. She watched the other girl do her thing. She couldn’t figure out what she was doing, but it seemed cute. Almost ridiculously so. She was sure she heard the girl say “Rwa” at one point. 

A little later, Jinsoul finally came back. “We’re done. Get Jiwoo and meet us again at my place.” 

Sooyoung just nodded again, and quickly went over to the girl. She tapped her shoulder, and told her something about the two having to go back home. The two girls said goodbye to the guy, and walked over to Sooyoung’s car. They sat down and laughed.

Sooyoung smiled at the girl. “So, you’re Jiwoo.” 

The girl laughed. She had the prettiest smile Sooyoung had ever seen. “You’re Sooyoung, I assume? Nice to meet you.”


	7. Chapter 5 - Jiwoo

Jiwoo didn’t know what she was expecting when she picked up the phone at three am, but it certainly wasn’t an invitation to help Jungeun and Jinsoul kidnap a dog. Even more, she didn’t expect that this would be how she finally met Sooyoung.

Jungeun didn’t explain much to her, only that they would need her to be there around 4:30 am to distract someone, and that Sooyoung would come to help her. The idea of meeting Sooyoung like this terrified her. She was just starting to mentally prepare herself for the double-date, and now she only had an hour left to do what she originally had more than a week for.

Jiwoo took out her journal and looked at the notes she had made for the date. First item on the list was getting her hair color refreshed at her cousins salon. There was no way she could dye her hair and be ready to go out in less than an hour. She would have to style around it. If she pinned her bangs the right way her roots wouldn’t be as visible, maybe Sooyoung wouldn’t notice that it’s been two months since she’s had them retouched. Her hair always looked freshly done in pictures, Jiwoo couldn’t afford to have it look anything less than perfect. 

Next item on the list was her outfit. She was planning on buying something new for the date but she hadn’t gotten around to it yet. She looked around her closet but the only thing that was both clean and not in need of ironing was her school uniform. She’d have to come up with an excuse as to why she was wearing it later if anyone asked.

Jiwoo looked at the time. It was already 3:26. If she wanted to get ready and catch the bus she’d have to rush. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

At 4:16 Jiwoo finally arrived at the shelter. After a few more minutes she found Jungeun. She apologized for the bad timing, thanked her for being such a great friend, and said many more things that Jiwoo was too tired to understand. What Jiwoo did understand was the 50 000 won note and the attached “I’m sorry you didn’t have time for breakfast” post-it on it. She put it in her bag and thought of all the nearby places she saw on the way. Maybe she and Sooyoung could go to one of those places later. 

When Jiwoo actually saw the girl she was speechless. Jiwoo already knew that she was a pretty girl. She was a model, after all. But no amount of gazing at her pictures on a computer screen could compare to how beautiful she looked in real life. Her eyes were the deepest shade of brown, for the first time Jiwoo saw someone whose eyes were so dark the color blended in with the pupils. They were framed by thick, long eyelashes and the straightest eyebrows Jiwoo had ever seen. Her cheeks and lips were a matching shade of blush pink, even though she obviously wasn’t wearing any makeup. Jiwoo could tell from Sooyoung’s dark eyebags. She wondered if her own eyebags looked like that at the moment. Even Sooyoung’s face shape was perfect, ending in a perfectly pointed jaw; it looked almost heart shaped. 

But she seemed to have gotten an even shorter heads-up before coming, she still had a half empty cup of iced coffee in her hand. She was wearing a wrinkled hoodie and what seemed to be pyjama pants. Her hair looked like it hadn’t touched a brush in a while and her face was in dire need of moisturizer. And yet she was still the prettiest girl in the world. 

After a few minutes a truck came in. Sooyoung barely registered it. Jiwoo decided to take matters into her own hands and let the girl rest a little.

“I’ll talk to him, you wait here and look out for anyone else.” Sooyoung just nodded in response.

She tried to distract the guy by doing some aegyo. She hated doing it but everyone always told her that she naturally had a lot of aegyo and sometimes she could use it to her advantage. The school uniform didn’t seem to hurt her chances. She looked past the guy and saw two blondes running with a dog. She figured the mission was a success but she wasn’t sure if she could end her adventure in embarrassing herself quite yet. Shortly after, Sooyoung came over to her and said something about the two having to leave. Jiwoo was filled with eternal gratitude, she saved her from having to start singing. They ran back to the car and drove off.  
Sooyoung smiled at her. “So, you’re Jiwoo.”  
Jiwoo laughed. She was glad Sooyoung didn’t bring up what she just did. “You’re Sooyoung, I assume? Nice to meet you.”  
After that they sat in the car in silence, not driving anywhere in particular. They didn’t know what to talk about. It didn’t feel right to talk about their friends instead of finally getting to know each other, but they didn’t know how to get rid of the awkwardness between them. After a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence, Jiwoo spoke up. 

“I saw this kimbap place on my way here, wanna go? My treat.”

Sooyoung smiled at her, relieved that one of them finally said something. “Sure, what’s the address?” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As expected, they were the only two people there. The workers didn’t seem to be surprised. Jiwoo had gone there at weirder times, and this wasn’t too bad by comparison. She ordered food and drinks for both of them. She figured it would look good if she took a little initiative. Maybe it could make Sooyoung forget the embarrassing aegyo act from earlier. They sat down next to the windows. Sooyoung grabbed some extra pillows from the empty seats. She liked pillows. Jiwoo had to remember that. She might be able to work that into a poem.

She still hadn’t made up her mind on the issue of the poems. On one hand, it felt weird to write poems for someone else when she was trying to date the girl. On the other hand, being in love with Sooyoung was not gonna pay the bills.

The two sat there, chatting for a while. The conversation was all over the place. They talked about Sooyoung’s dance crew and how worried she was because she felt they were completely unprepared for their upcoming performance, and the confusion when she found out that Viian balanced owning a skating rink and being leader. They talked about the cat Jiwoo owned when she was seven but had to give away when she developed a cat hair allergy. They talked about their favorite types of cake; Sooyoung liked sponge cake; Jiwoo loved red velvet anything. 

Jiwoo was fascinated with the way Sooyoung spoke. Her voice was nothing like she thought it would be. It was deeper than she imagined it to be. She wished she could listen to it more, but Sooyoung’s responses were always very short, and always ended in questions that Jiwoo had to answer before she could hear that beautiful voice again. Maybe it was just that first meeting shyness and she’d start talking more in the future. But Jiwoo didn’t think so. She could already tell she was gonna be the more talkative one in this relationship.

It all went surprisingly smooth. They were both so awkward over text, she thought it’d be the same in person. She was relieved. They might work out as a couple after all, or at least go to the date without spending half the time in awkward silence.

Suddenly, they remembered that they were supposed to meet Jinsoul at her home after the whole rescue mission. They quickly finished their food and drinks and then hurried to Jinsoul’s place. 

The girl was a bit mad that they ignored her, but she forgave them quickly.. It turned out she didn’t want them for anything important; she just wanted to ask Sooyoung what the address to the skating rink was. Jiwoo laughed at the fact that they broke off their date for something that minor. Wait. Was it a date? She’d have to ask Sooyoung if she thought that was a date.


	8. Chapter 6 - Sooyoung

Sooyoung was still giddy with excitement about the date when she went back home a few hours later after finishing dance practice. Their little impromptu breakfast date had gone so well, she couldn’t wait for their real date in a few days. She hoped Jiwoo felt the same.

She was sitting on her couch, imagining how their date might go. They were going to go to Viian’s rollerskating rink, but she wasn’t sure if Jiwoo had ever gone before. What if she didn’t know how to ? Sooyoung heart was racing at the concept of getting to teach Jiwoo how to skate, and getting to hold her hand while guiding her. Of course, skating wasn’t exactly the most difficult thing to learn in a few minutes, but she’d get to have a lot of fun in those few minutes.

She was still daydreaming about Jiwoo and her round rosy cheeks when she got a message from Jinsoul.

“Hey, are you still coming over or….? If you are, I wouldn’t mind some extra spicy ramen.” Shit. Sooyoung had completely forgotten that she’d promised Jinsoul that she’d stay with her while her family was out of town so she wouldn’t be too lonely. Hopefully Jinsoul wouldn’t hold a grudge about Sooyoung forgetting to meet her twice in one day. She packed her bag, throwing in some new, less sweaty clothes for the next day’s dance practice that Viian had texted her about a few hours ago, and some leftover chocolate to apologize to Jinsoul. She went to the kitchen to grab the ramen, Jinsoul was always too cheap to get her own. Sooyoung was sure that at this point she’d spent a few million won feeding them.

Before she left she remembered to get the letter she’d gotten earlier that day so she could show Jinsoul. She hadn’t told her about her plans because she hadn’t thought that she’d get anywhere but now that she’d gotten the confirmation letter she felt extremely guilty that she hadn’t talked to Jinsoul about it in the first place. She hoped she could spin it to be somewhat funny so that Jinsoul wouldn’t feel too betrayed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sooyoung could tell that Jinsoul was starting to get bored of her talking about the date. She looked like she might actually fall asleep if she didn’t switch to a more interesting topic soon. Sooyoung wanted to share her news with her, but the timing didn’t feel right. She’d already been such a bad friend throughout the entire day, she didn’t want to add insult to injury. So, talking about the length of Jiwoo’s eyelashes would have to do in the meantime.

When Jinsoul started to actually snore she decided she had to do something to keep her awake. She went to the kitchen and prepared some ramen for them. While she was pouring boiling water over the noodles, she saw Jinsoul walk into the kitchen, still wrapped in her blanket.

“Oh, you’re awake again,” she noted absentmindedly, trying not to drip anymore hot water on the counter than she already had.

“Yeah, the kettle is kinda loud. Should’ve used the microwave if you didn’t want to be noisy. Or at least the new kettle.” Jinsoul sounded agitated. Sooyoung forgot that she sleeps very lightly.

“Why do you have a new kettle?”

“Because that one makes the most terrifying whistling noise whenever it’s done? There’s a reason they stopped making kettles like that decades ago. Because they suck.”

“Well, you should’ve told me about that before I started making ramen.” Jinsoul groaned

“Ugh, just use the new one next time, please. I think I died in my dream because of that sound.”

Sooyoung nodded and mumbled something in agreement while carrying the cups over to the kitchen table.

“By the way, where’s the dog? I figured you would keep her.” She asked as she handed Jinsoul her cup.

Jinsoul instantly started slurping down half the cup.

“No,” she started answering, noodles falling out of her mouth. “Apparently Jungeun’s family already has three dogs so she figured no one would mind a fourth one.”

“That's ... a lot of dogs.” Sooyoung had a hard time wrapping her mind around the concept of living with so many animals to take care of. Jinsoul didn’t seem to share the sentiment.

“And? I’d rather live with four dogs than like you with your three sisters.”

“Ouch. You’re just jealous because your brother is so much older, you’re basically an only child.” Jinsoul pouted at that one, but Sooyoung could tell that she'd genuinely upset her, so she quickly switched topics.

“When are you getting your roots done? You’ve never let them grow so long before.”

“In two days. The girl that usually does my hair wasn’t available for a while and I didn’t want someone else to do it.”

“Is she cute?”

“Sooyoung, she’s like twelve.”

“I sincerely hope the reason you can afford getting your hair bleached at a salon isn’t child labor.”

Jinsoul threw one of the coasters at Sooyoung’s head in response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning Jinsoul was nice enough to drive Sooyoung to dance practice. Sooyoung couldn’t wait until the performance was behind her and she had free time again. She could finally do some modelling work again. Ahh, putting on twenty-seven outfits an hour for Chinese scam sites. How fun. At least they paid well. And when she got lucky they would let her keep the clothes. She had so many of them at this point that she didn’t need to go shopping anymore.

To the surprise of everyone who had sacrificed their plans for this semi impromptu dance practice, Viian was late. Sooyoung was too concerned to be mad though, she was genuinely worried that Viian got into some type of accident. What if she was hurt ?

Sooyoung tried to call her, but no response. She decided to take the lead for the day and tried to convince the other girls to practice a little anyway. She was mildly successful, mostly thanks to Yerim who was so happy and bright that no one could say no to her when she asked them to dance along. Yerim could probably convince everyone to sell her their soul with that big gummy smile of hers. She could rival the sun in brightness.

Sooyoung realized that if asked she would with one hundred percent certainty adopt Yerim. She really loved that little girl.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took another two hours of practice, mostly compromised of boba drinking breaks, for Viian to finally arrive. She apologized for the delay, and after seeing that a decent amount of practice did occur, let everyone go. Sooyoung decided to stay to interrogate her a little bit.

After a lot of probing she admitted that she was late because she had to drive her girlfriend to the airport. Her girlfriend had been offered some opera gig in a vaguely italian sounding place, but she forgot her passport at home so Viian ended up being delayed a lot more than she expected. Sooyoung wanted to start asking her about this girlfriend she’d never heard of before, but then Viian continued and said that she’d be following her later that week, and staying with her for a few weeks.

“You’re doing what? Do you realize we have a performance in two weeks? How are we supposed to do this without you?” Sooyoung wanted to punch her, but she couldn’t do that to someone who planned their choreographies.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” she said. “I got someone to replace me for the meantime. She’s here if you want to meet her, but we’re going to the movies so you’re gonna have to be quick.”

“Sure, let’s go. I wanna know who my new boss is for the next few weeks.”

Sooyoung quickly got changed and went to meet Viian at her car. She saw that Viian and the other girl were sitting inside of it, probably to shield themselves from the cold, and waved at them to get their attention. Viian’s friend saw her first and climbed out of the car and started walking towards her. Sooyoung’s mouth almost dropped when she saw her, but she tried to contain herself as much as she could.

She ran over and quickly introduced herself to the girl, told her that she was very excited about working with her soon, and wished her an Viian fun at the movies. Afterwards she made a mental note to ask Viian how the hell she knew Kwon Yuri.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she got back home she finally unpacked her bag properly for the first time in a few days. She was taking out all the dirty clothes and candy wrappers, when a pink slip of paper fell out of it. Sooyoung picked it up and read it.

_오 어떤 단어로 널 설명할 수 있을까 _

_아마 이 세상 말론 모자라 _

_가만 서 있기만 해도 예쁜 그 다리로 _

_내게로 걸어와 안아주는 너 _

_몇 번을 말해줘도 모자라 오직 _

_너만 알고 있는 간지러운 그 목소리로 _

_노래 부를 거야 나 나 나 나 _

_자꾸 맘이 가네 나 정말 미치겠네_

_Oh, with what word can I explain you? _

_All the words of the world is probably not enough _

_With those legs that are so pretty by just standing still _

_You walk toward me and you hug me _

_Telling you multiple times is not enough _

_With this tickling voice that only knows you I will sing for you _

_My heart keeps going to you I’m really going crazy_


End file.
